Original scientific paper
Croatofonia
Ivan Pederin
Abstract
This article deals with the Croatian language as a small language that played a great role in history. Croatian tribes immigrated to Dalmatia in the early Middle Ages, following the shambles and disarray in the Roman Empire and the strangling of the last Emperor in Diocletian’s palace, in the present day city of Split. Croats settled down in a province where Latin, Greek, Rumanian and Dalmatian were spoken. In France and Spain the conquerorsabandoned their language and embraced the language of the conquered. In the later centuries
Castellano and the language of the Île de France strangled the regional languages and rose to become the national languages. This was not the case with Croatian that, being the
language of a semi barbaric people, drove Latin and Greek back into the cities and spread in the countryside accepting the Greek and Latin influences in the translation of the Holy Mass. Rome did not relay to this recent language and translations fearing heresies and then
the newborn church language were used in literature. Croats were the first among the Slavs to develop a profane literature. In the subsequent centuries, Croatian rose to become one of
the languages of communication at the Doge’s Palace in Venice and at the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. It even served as language of communication between the Holy See and the Patriarchate of Moscow with Mate Karaman, the Archbishop of Zadar, serving in Rome as
the person responsible for Eastern Christianity. In recent times, following the emigration of millions of Europeans to the overseas countries, and as one of the consequences of globalisation,
the speakers of Croatian are living all over the world. After the fall of Communism they are again a part of our national body.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
133497
URI
Publication date:
1.4.2014.
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